While the suet is melting, stir together the chili powder, salt, oregano, cumin, pepper, sugar, cilantro, and thyme in a bowl. Pour the beer over the spices, and mix until all lumps are dissolved. Pour the chicken stock into a Dutch oven or large, heavy saucepan, and spoon the beer mixture into it. Add the chiles, tomatoes, celery, and garlic to the stock.
After the suet is rendered, there should be 6 to 8 tablespoons of fat. Pour out about two-thirds of it, and reserve it. In two batches, brown the pork in the suet, adding more fat as needed. Spoon the pork into the stock mixture. Bring the mixture to a simmer, and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add more fat to the skillet, and brown the steak about a third at a time. Spoon the steak into the stock mixture, and simmer the mixture another hour.
Stir in the onion and bell pepper. Continue simmering for an additional 2 to 3 hours, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes, until the meat breaks down. Let the chili cool at room temperature for 1 hour. For optimum flavor, refrigerate it for about 24 hours.
Reheat the chili. About 5 minutes before serving, stir in the cheese and the lime juice.
* * *
"Woody" Wood won the third Terlingua cook-off in 1969, brought a throne with him the next year and sat out the competition, took the title again in 1971, and then announced his retirement as the "Undefeeted Undenia-Bull World's Champion." Some sourpusses attributed his victories to the bevy of Hollywood starlets that he brought along as cheerleaders.
* * *
Hot Pants Chili
Allegani Jani Schofield of Fredericksburg won the World's Championship Cookoff at Terlingua in 1974 with her famous Hot Pants recipe. The name came from the chili's effect on the eater as well as from Jani's attire, which an abashed Tolbert meekly described as "hot pants and sweater and nothing much else." One reporter said the combination of the cook and the chili set back planned parenthood bg ten gears. We're grateful to Fani for the latest version of the recipe, published originally in Allegani Jani's Cookbook.
2 tablespoons oil, preferably canola or corn
4 pounds beef stew meat, ground coarse once
2 medium onions, chopped fine
Garlic salt and lemon pepper, to taste
6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 tablespoon water
1 pound peeled whole tomatoes with juice
¾ cup beer
4 ounces chili seasoning
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1
to
4 chopped fresh jalapeños, optional
1 tablespoon mole paste
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 quart water
½ cup masa harina
Grated cheddar or Monterey jack cheese and chopped onions, optional, for garnish
Serves 5 to 6
In a large saucepan, warm the oil over medium heat. Add the meat and onions, season with the garlic salt and the lemon pepper, and fry the meat until it is well browned.
While the meat cooks, use a molcajete or mortar and pestle to make a paste from the garlic, cumin seeds, and 1 tablespoon water. Add the paste to the undrained meat.
In a blender, purée the tomatoes, beer, chili seasoning, chili powder, and sugar, and pour the mixture into the meat. Stir in as many jalapeños as your tongue can tolerate, the mole paste, the Tabasco, and the salt. Pour in the 1 quart water. Cover the chili, bring it to a simmer, and simmer it for 1 hour.
Uncover the pan, and cook the chili an additional 1½ hours, stirring occasionally.
Combine the masa harina with enough water to make a runny paste. Stir it into the chili quickly, to avoid lumps. Simmer the chili 30 minutes more to thicken it.
Serve the chili hot, passing the garnishes separately.
* * *
Most early chili cook-offs barred women under ninety, a rule that reflected H. Allen Smith's contention that "no one should be permitted to cook chili while then and there being a female person." To combat the discrimination, Allegani Jani and friends organized the Hell Hath No Fury Chili Society and started the ladies-only Susan B. Anthony Memorial Cook-in in Luckenbach, which broke the official sex barrier. The chili chauvin-ists would have fared better against a north Texas twister.
* * *
* * *
Technique Tips
Mole paste (a thick mixture of chiles, chocolate, and seeds) and a Mexican molcajete (the south-of-the-border version of a mortar and pestle) can be found in Mexican and Latino groceries.
* * *
* * *
The first women to cook at Terlingua showed up uninvited in 1970. One of the three party-crashers, Janice Constantine of Midland, arrived in a chauffeured Rolls Royce with a retinue of attendants who laid out an elaborate silver service with a candelabra. She cooked in a "mini-mini costume," as Tolbert called it, to the accompaniment of music provided by a tuxedoed violinist from the Midland-Odessa Symphony Orchestra.
* * *
Hornadillo Chili
Not to be outdone by Allegani Jani Schofield and the other women competing in the ladies-only cook-off in his hometown, Luckenbach mayor Hondo Crouch developed his own chili recipe. A consummate prankster who called his village the "metropolis of mirth," Hondo liked his chili green instead of red, a reflection perhaps of the color he wanted to turn guests. In his own words, this is how Hondo described his "armadillo shell of bliss" to Allegani Jani.
1 medium armadillo (save the shell)
Other stuff
Dice the armadillo into chunks—do not grind. Next dye them pea green to produce the color for green chili. Use only "Ysleta Red" Chili Pods, grown only in Ysleta because the soil is peculiar. Grind 3 comino seeds vigorously. Add jigger of tequila, pinch of salt, slice of lime. (May be either taken internally or added to chili.) For chili thickening, put in a raw egg—two if they're cheap. And if you can borrow some, add olive oil. It's too expensive to buy. Add green onion tops and finely ground cedar bark. Sprinkle with green spinach or fresh watercress and serve on the half shell.
* * *
Will Rogers said he judged a town by the cafe chili it served. After trying hundreds of bowls across the Southwest, he awarded three stars to Coleman, Texas, whose local chili joint claimed to make its concoction from bull testicles.
* * *
* * *
The federal government once invited Hondo to represent Texas in a cultural exchange in Washington, D.C. Always looking for a little fun, he boarded the plane with a pillowcase tied at the top with decorative rattlesnake rattles. Somewhere over Tennessee, he got up and started wandering the aisle, peering under seats. Finally an elderly lady glanced up from her knitting and asked if he had lost something. Hondo replied, "Yes Ma'am, my baby rattlers got loose out of my sack." Passengers panicked, and the captain radioed ahead to Dulles Airport to ask the F.B.I, to meet the flight and confiscate the snakes. The F.B.I. agents got confused, though, and grabbed the lady's knitting sack, stomping it furiously while Hondo sauntered away with the pillowcase tucked in his back pocket.
Hondo's business card read: Hondo Crouch Imagineer Authorized distributor Luckenbach
* * *
Mind-Expanding Therapeutic Chili Verde
Not all green chilis are as strange as Hondo's. Even Tolbert acknowledged that many fine bowls of red were actually green, especially along the upper Rio Grande Valley near New Mexico. Houston chilihead Fred McMurray developed this recipe for St. Patrick's Day, and his friend Allegani Jani Schofield published it in her cookbook.
5 pounds top round steak, trimmed and cubed
4 large onions, chopped
2 cups nopales, chopped ([>])
1 tablespoon salt, or more, to taste
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
7 fresh jalapeños, chopped
6 fresh serranos, chopped
2
to
3 garlic cloves
, minced
7 cups water
12 green chiles, preferably New Mexican, roasted and chopped
12 pasilla chiles, roasted and chopped
5 large tomatoes, chopped
12 ounces beer
Masa harina, as needed
Serves 12
In a heavy saucepan over high heat, sear the meat, scraping it up from the bottom until it is evenly browned. Add half the onions and the nopales, salt, cumin, oregano, jalapeños, serranos, and garlic. Pour in 4 cups of the water, and stir well. Cover the pan, and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer for 2 hours.
Uncover the pan, and add the remaining water, the rest of the onions, the green chiles and pasilla chiles, the tomatoes, and the beer, and simmer an additional hour, stirring occasionally.
If the chili seems thin, mix a few spoonfuls of masa harina together with enough water to make a runny paste, and stir it into the chili quickly, to avoid lumps. Cook the chili another 15 minutes.
Serve the chili hot. Pozole or pinto beans are good on the side.
* * *
A psychologist by training, Fred McMurray is one of the staunchest promoters of the therapeutic values of chili. His chilogical scientific tests have demonstrated conclusively that his chili is a biodegradable environmental enricher with tremendous aphrodisiac powers and the ability to heal preoperative lobotomy complications. It absolutely may or may not cure acute sobriety, frostbite, and grouchy dispositions.
* * *
Sam Pendergrast's Old-Time Texas Restaurant Chili
Abilene iconoclast Sam Pendergrast is fed up with the cook-off chilis of recent gears. He says they suffer from CSWBG, the "Cubed Steak with Brown Gravy" syndrome, characterized by low-fat expensive meat cooked in a mild, lackluster sauce. Sam prefers the old cafe chilis of the 1940s, which he describes as "blood red, with an aroma of cominos that could be whiffed at least a block away and precluded the necessity of outdoor advertising, hefty chunks of meat you could get your teeth into—along with authenticational bits of gristle—and a rich sauce featuring at least an eighth of an inch of grease." Sam's recipe—edited only slightly—and his chili observations come from his Zen Chili: The Real Terlingua and Other boondoggles (third edition in progress).
1 pound fatty bacon
2 pounds coarse beef, extra-large chili grind
1 cup cumin seeds
1 cup ground dried red chile, preferably New Mexican
¼ teaspoon cayenne
Cornmeal, optional
Salt, pepper, and garlic, to taste
Paprika, optional
Serves 4
Render the grease from the bacon; eat a bacon sandwich while the chili cooks. (Good chili takes time.)
Sauté the beef in the bacon grease, over medium heat, for at least 10 minutes. Slowly add the cumin and red chile, a tablespoon or so of each at a time, until the mixture tastes and smells like chili. (This is the critical point: If you add all the spices at once, there is no leeway for personal tastes.) Let the mixture cook awhile between additions, and don't feel compelled to use all the spices.
Add water to avoid sticking or for soupier chili. SLOOOWLY add the cayenne, until smoke curls your eyelashes. Simmer the mixture at least 2 hours, until you can't resist ladling a bowlful for a sample. Skim the excess fat for dietetic chili, or mix the grease with a small amount of cornmeal and return it to the pot for thicker chili.
Finish with salt, pepper, and garlic to taste and, if you like, paprika to darken the chili. Continue simmering until served. Continue reheating until gone. (As with wine, time ennobles good chili.) The result should be a rich red, heavily cuminesque concoction with enough liquid to welcome crackers, some chewy chunks of meat thoroughly permeated by the distinctive spices, and an aroma calculated to lure strangers to the kitchen door.
* * *
The term greasy spoon was a literal signature for the old chili joints. They served big, thick bowls of red containing enough grease to lubricate a Model T. The original fat was beef suet, sometimes supplemented by pork fat, maybe bacon drippings or fatback.
* * *
Pedernales River Chili
Lyndon Johnson once loved the kind of greasy chili that Sam Pendergrast cooks. His doctor made him modify the recipe, though, when he suffered a heart attack during his tenure in the U.S. Senate. This became the new reduced-fat version, graciously provided by Mrs. Johnson.
4 pounds chili-grind beef chuck or venison
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican
2 tablespoons chili powder, or more, to taste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt to taste
2
to
6 dashes Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce
2 cups hot water
1½ cups canned whole tomatoes with juice
Serves 5 to 6
Place the meat, onion, and garlic in a large, heavy frying pan or Dutch oven. Cook over medium heat until the meat is lightly browned.
Add the oregano, chili powder, cumin, salt, and hot pepper sauce. Pour in the water and tomatoes, and bring the chili to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook for 1 hour. Skim off any fat during the cooking.
Serve the chili hot.
* * *
You can follow the progression of chili across the country, and see it move from hot to mild, in the ingredients that were added over time. By 1920 many national cookbooks called for beans in chili. Two decades later, tomatoes became common.
* * *
* * *
The Texas Legislature made chili the official state dish in 1977. Barbecue lovers said it was just another tasteless act from Austin, but supporters of chicken-fried steak claimed fraud, maintaining that L. T. Felty of Waxahachie bribed the politicians with his golden pots of chili.
* * *
Atascosa County Chili
Gloria Bledsoe Goodman gave us this recipe, which has been in her family for more than a century. It originated with Gloria's grandmother, Diega Faustina Ramon from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Diega lived in Laredo after the death of her first husband until William Frazer Mather Ross drove his stagecoach into town, captured the young widow's heart, and moved her to a ranch in Atascosa County. The recipe hasn't changed since Diega's day except for the addition of tomato sauce, introduced by a cousin of Gloria's who sold the chili by the gallons to San Antonio society ladies.
2 white onions, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon oil or beef suet
2 pounds chili-grind beef
1 pound chili-grind pork (If the butcher grinds the pork special from a cut with a bone, take the bone too.)
3 tablespoons Gebhardt's chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 tomato sauce can water
Salt to taste
Cayenne or ground dried chile de árbol to taste
Masa harina, as needed
Serves 4 to 6
In a Dutch oven or heavy saucepan, fry the onions and garlic in the fat until they are limp. Add the beef and pork, and cook until the meat is just gray. Mix in the chili powder and cumin. Pour in the tomato sauce and water. If the butcher gave you some pork bones, toss them into the chili to add flavor (but remove them before serving).
Simmer the chili gently, adding salt to taste and cayenne or other chile at your peril. Cook at least 1 hour, preferably 2 hours or longer.
If the chili seems thin, stir a few spoonfuls of the masa harina together with enough water to make a runny paste, and stir the paste into the chili quickly, to avoid lumps.
Serve the chili hot. It is even better the following day. It makes a good sauce for Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas, too.
* * *
The official Manual for Army Cooks, published by the War Department in 1896, included one of the first written recipes for chili. It called for cooking pieces of round s
teak with rice, and making a separate sauce out of hand-squeezed chile pods softened in boiling water.
* * *
Old Buffalo Breath Chili
Our favorite treatise on chili, among the scores around, is John Thorne's Just Another Bowl of Texas Red, a witty and wise pamphlet by the editor of the Simple Cooking newsletter. A former El Paso resident, Thorne urges readers not to fall into the recipe trap with chili—"the compelling logic of the dish is enough"—but he ultimately does give his own recipe, which we reproduce almost verbatim.
5 pounds chuck roast, at least 3 inches thick
10
to
11 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt to taste
Chili powder
¼ cup olive oil
About 1 to 2 cups beef broth
Juice of 1 lime
2 teaspoons ground dried mild red chile, such as ancho or New Mexican
2 teaspoons ground dried hot red chile, such as cayenne or chile de Árbol
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
Texas Home Cooking Page 13